Monday, December 22, 2014

Just a few quick words to let you all know I haven’t
forgotten you. This holiday season has been crazy busy. We just finished up our
annual Christmas fundraiser at the Lowry House AND a play I directed and in which
my lovely wife starred. (It’s not one of MY plays, though, just a side project.
Actually I took it on as a favor to a friend. Anyway, it’s a well known and
popular Christmas play and doesn’t need any additional publicity, so I shan’t
name it here.) Add to that the fact that we’ve had a long stretch of gloomy,
wet weather that’s causing my seasonal depression to kick in big time, slowing
my natural pace-of-life to a snail’s crawl and reducing my bio-energies to
almost zilch, and it’s been even more hectic than it otherwise would have been,
leaving precious little time for blogging or anything else, save sleeping or
moping. Feeling very Charlie Brown this year (“I know I’m supposed to
feel happy…”) with a little bit of old Ebenezer thrown in for good measure.

Even so, Christmas will come to Whoville all the same. May
my heart that feels shriveled to three sizes too small right now grow
exponentially. Actually, let that be my Christmas wish for you all, as well. May
we all feel a little more like the post-enlightenment Grinch than the “before”
version.

Safe and happy holidays to you all. See you bright and early
next year—and what a busy year it is going to be!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

I’m a little
behind the curve on this one, I know, but I’ve been busy.

Anyway, as
promised, I’m going to reveal to you all what really went down in Ferguson,
Missouri that day Michael Brown got killed. In a little bit. First, we need to
discuss some facts. Admittedly I’m being facetious here, promising some big
reveal, hinting at some hidden “inside” knowledge. I don’t have any. And my
opinion on what happened, also admittedly, doesn’t count for much. They call it
“two cents worth” for a reason, after all. But I do believe it is possible for
each of us to get pretty close to the truth of what really happened between
Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown, just by studying the two eyewitness
accounts, the one given by Brown’s friend and the one by the police officer. The
truth is not
“out there” this time; it’s in there.
In the reports, that is. You just have to dig for it. Grab a shovel, anyone?

First off,
neither account is 100% reliable. Both men are lying, the cop and the witness.
Both are trying to make the whole thing look better for their case than the reality
supports. But the two accounts do line up closely enough that, by juxtaposing
them, we can shave away all the detritus and the superfluous and, again I say,
hit pretty close to the mark.

Here’s the
downlow, as agreed upon by both testimonies: Cop is driving by and sees two
black youths walking in the street. Yes, it is a fact that Brown and his friend
had just shoplifted some cigarillos from a store, but Cop does not question
them regarding this offence. He tells them to walk on the sidewalk. According
to his version of the story, he asks them as nicely and politely as possible. As
my grandmother would have phrased it in her deep southern vernacular, “sugar
woulda boiled up in his mouth” he was so sweet about it. I doubt it. More
likely it was a curt “Get on the sidewalk!” or similar command. Not that it
matters, really. Police officers are not required by law to sweet-talk anyone. It’s
nice when they are polite, but they aren’t required to be. Brown and his friend
say something along the lines of “We’re almost where we’re going.” And they
were. Spitting distance from it. Cop, however, is not content with that answer and
again tells them to get on the sidewalk. He says he was nice about it. Witness
says otherwise. Cop then says Michael Brown mouthed off at him. Witness doesn’t
think so, but agrees that Brown might have mumbled something under his breath.

Here’s where
I call bullshit for the first time. Of COURSE Brown said something; it could
have been under his breath. Cop says it was something rather vulgar and
insulting. Could be that Cop only assumed it was vulgar and insulting because
he didn’t really hear it all that clearly. In any case, it was this comment
that incited Cop to do what he did next.

I get it.
Cop felt he was being disrespected by these two “punks.” And the two DID ignore
his admonition to walk on the sidewalk. Granted this is not a major offense,
but still. Cop ain’t having none of it.

Here’s where
the accounts really take divergent trajectories. Cop says he stops the car. We
know he slammed on the brakes, and we know at this point he is no longer being
polite. How do we know this? Human nature. It just makes sense. That’s the
scalpel we must use to carve out the truth here. This is Wonder Woman’s magic
lasso, thrown around the whole situation. How can we know if it’s true? If it
makes sense it is in all likelihood true and if it doesn’t make sense it
probably isn’t. It won’t get us “beyond the shadow of a doubt” but it’ll get us
close enough for an educated opinion. So Brown and his friend have now disrespected
Cop, or at the least Cop believes they have done so. He stops the car. And then…

Cop says
that Michael brown charged him, pinning the door closed and keeping cop from
getting out of the car. Testing confirms that Brown’s DNA was found inside the
cop car, so we know he did in fact get very close to it. But Witness says that
Cop grabbed Brown, not that Brown was the aggressor. Punches then get thrown. Cop
says he was trying to beat Brown off of him. Witness says Brown is trying to
fight his way free. Cop pulls out his gun and fires, hitting Brown, who backs
off, allowing Cop to get out of the car.

Cop had
testified that he couldn’t get to any other weapon—mace, billy club, Taser, kitchen
sink, what have you—and so instead went for his gun. Sounds feasible. But
certainly Cop could NOW, at this point in the juncture, have gotten his hands
on some other weapon. But come on. He’s in the heat of the moment. Adrenaline
is rushing through his veins. And he’s already got the gun in his hand.

Here, then,
we come to the crux of the case, as far as I’m concerned. Cop says Brown
charged him and so he opened fire. Witness says Brown was backing up. So which
was it?

Does it make
sense that a man already wounded, a man unarmed, would charge a man pointing a
gun at him? A man who has ALREADY shot him? It wouldn’t seem so, but I am put
in mind of squirrels. On numerous occasions over the course of my lifetime I’ve
run over a squirrel with my car, although I genuinely do try not to. I will
swerve to avoid them, every time. But there have been several instances where
the squirrel had already gotten clear and would have been safe, but it turned
and ran straight at my car, running straight under the wheels. In fear, it
panics. And gets itself run over despite my best efforts. Is that what happened
with Brown? In a moment of insensate fear and panic, in pain, adrenaline
pumping, did he pull the equivalent of a bushy-tailed rodent tilting at a
speeding automobile? It COULD have happened that way. I’m suspicious, but I
have to concede that it’s possible.

There is one
detail in Cop’s story, though, that makes me call bullshit. He says that Brown was
reaching inside his waistband as he charged. As in, reaching for a gun. As in, Cop
believed Brown was going for a gun when Cop unloaded into Brown. Bullshit. Cop
was shading the account o make himself look better. A cop who shoots a man he
believes to be armed, that looks a lot better on the record than a cop who
shoots a man armed only with contraband cigarillos. (And Brown didn’t even have
THEM at that point. He’d handed them off to witness.) Cop was lying when he
said he saw Brown reaching into his pants for a gun. How can we know that?
Common sense, remember. Even if Brown did go all kamikaze squirrel and charge the
cop, it just doesn’t make sense that he’d be sticking his hand down his pants while
doing it. Unless he had a gun. Which he didn’t. We know THAT for a fact. So
what was he trying to do, adjust his fly while charging the man who had just
shot him? B-to the-ull-to-the-shit. I don’t buy it.

As I
promised, then, I will now reveal to you the absolute truth of what happened
that day in Ferguson. You ready? Here it comes.

Both men did
something stupid.

Of that and
maybe that alone we can be certain beyond any doubt. Two men made stupid
decisions. One of those men had a gun. And one ended up dead.

Brown was
not the completely innocent victim many believe him to have been. Officer
Wilson was not the upstanding policeman simply doing his duty, devoid of all
culpability in this case. The truth lies, as it almost always does, somewhere
between the two extremes. Tempers flared. This led to rash behavior from both
men. And tragedy followed.

I truly
believe that’s what happened. As for the rest of it, the specifics, I don’t
know. How much did the fact that the two men had different color skin play a
factor? I honestly don’t know. None of us know the full truth. Only Cop and
Witness know where one’s truth ends and the other’s begins. All the rest of us
can do is make an educated guess. Which is what I’ve just done. Like I said,
worth about two cents.

As a guy who
can on rare occasions be something of a hothead, I’m going to try, personally
speaking, to take from this a lesson, that I should try not to lose my cool,
even when I believe I’m totally in the right. Bad things can happen when tempers
flare.

If lessons
can be learned that will help prevent more situations like this from occurring in
the future, at least one good thing can come out of the whole terrible mess.